I'm not sure if this question is obvious, or if the answer can be found here or on the Wiki...but regardless, I can't seem to find it.

My main question is this...How do you animate sprites?

It seems like it would be simple, and the Platform School tutorial makes it seem so. But I copy all the methods I saw from there into my project, and my sprites won't animate. They switch to different animations types (run, jump, fall, etc.) but they won't ANIMATE. My character just slides across the scene in the same frame.

I thought this would be one of the easiest parts but I just can't figure it out. I hate to be a bother and ask such a seemingly obvious question, but I'm stumped!

I replied to a similar thread a few days ago.[url:1eeh4xov]http://scirra.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4440&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a[/url:1eeh4xov]

You may want to read this and get the file in the last post (this file), which demonstrates basic animations with events and also how to face the right direction.

The problem might be that you're using tagged animations, which are glitchy atm I believe. In one of my current projects I'm using them without a problem, but the animations are only tagged on the dummy sprite. Then the visual player sprite will be set to the dummy animation (they are named the same way), when the animation is changing. Doing it this way, the animation will play properly. Or do it purely with events as shown in the example cap.

Thanks! I can't believe I didn't notice that other topic you mentioned, it was on the first page! I even used the search, but I only tried "Running animation" because I was thinking about it in terms of running...sorry.

It honestly took me several minutes to figure out how to get things working based on your demo, but when I finally got it to work, it started to make sense. Finally getting my sprite (well, it's not really my sprite to be honest) to actually run is actually a large stepping stone to getting things started with my project. Thanks for that.

Like I mentioned there, I am trying to make a Mega Man fangame. Funny thing is, I don't even know if I'm going to put Magnet Man in it. Since you recognized Magnet Man, I'm going to assume you are familiar with Mega Man.

Mega Man...shoots to attack. I've figured out how to make him shoot, but I can't figure out to make him go back to his normal position after firing a shot. I'm not sure how long it is between pressing the attack button and returning back to normal, but nothing I try ends up even remotely how it should.

If you don't mind me asking (anybody can answer) how would I go about doing this? Is this enough info to work with?

(I intentionally made the topic title somewhat vague to give me space to ask more than question because I don't want to clutter up the board, I hope that's okay)

(oh, one last thing, I'm using version 0.99.42, if that makes any difference)

[quote="Magnet Missile":a5bq0bhz]Mega Man...shoots to attack. I've figured out how to make him shoot, but I can't figure out to make him go back to his normal position after firing a shot. I'm not sure how long it is between pressing the attack button and returning back to normal, but nothing I try ends up even remotely how it should.[/quote:a5bq0bhz]

By "normal position" you mean the normal (non-shooting) animation I assume. If you're using events to control your animations like in the example, there are several things you could do to make it work. For example give the sprite a PV called "Shooting" to control which animation will be shown. Since Megaman can shoot while walking/jumping too this could make things less messy. Or you could even split the sprite itself in upper and lower part. But I guess I wouldn't recommend this for beginners.

[quote="Magnet Missile":a5bq0bhz]Is this enough info to work with?[/quote:a5bq0bhz]Actually it's not really enough information to give a precise answer. You maybe missing just one event or some small tweak to make your animations work properly for all I know. So I'd like to see your cap if that's possible, makes things easier.

On a sidenote I've already checked out the beginnings of a very good MegaMan engine made by forum member SuperV, who appears to be a total MM fan himself too. Maybe if he knew about the "MegaMan-ness" of this thread he'd jump right into nerd mode. That could be very helpful for you I guess. (Don't hurt me SuperV=)

If you want to create a big megaman fangame, with an easy-to-expand and an easy-to-tweak engine, then you should probably start it later.Make other platformer projects for now, learn to use functions, learn to use less sprites possible, learn to make a good engine.

After you've done that, you can start PLANNING your fan game. When everything is planned, you can create it.

@PixelRebirth:Thanks again, your reply made me think about things again, and I have a method that works pretty good so far. I copied the event conditions of your example of changing animations when moving from your cap, and added "On Key J released" to the even conditions. J is currently the attack button in my project. It makes him go back to his normal, default stance after shooting, but it's almost instant. I need a way to have some type of time delay in the event actions, and it will help immensely, but I have no no idea how to do that. I've found out how to have time delay as part of the condition, but not the action. Is it possible?

I'm not sure how to display this, but here's what I have for the attack start-up:[code:flmsmm1h]Always (every tick) Mega: Set animation to "Shoot"On key J pressed Mega: Play current animation Mega: Spawn object Buster1 on layer 1(image point "Buster")[/code:flmsmm1h]

And the attack finish:[code:flmsmm1h]Player1 is on ground Mega: Set animation to "Blink"Player1[Platform] Mega: Play current animationVectorX Equal to 0On key J released[/code:flmsmm1h]

Does that help, or am I wasting time?

@SuperV:Good to see more Mega Man fans around here. I appreciate the advice, but I am making progress a lot faster than I thought I would. Maybe I'm being stupid, maybe I'm being arrogant, but I think I can do this the way I have planned so far. Which isn't much planning, but that's how I do things. The more I plan things, the more I put them off...and I usually never start a lot of ideas I have. Often times it's better for me to just jump in and work everything out later. I know it's not the best way, but it works for me. (I'm not planning a BIG Mega Man game, just a normal sized one...mostly...8 boss levels, a 4-stage castle, and I'm considering throwing in 4 optional stages...1 of which is secret. Then again, even a game you can beat in a couple hours...like a Mega Man game...still takes a long time to make.)

P.S.: Magnet Man's not even my favorite robot master, I just decided to use him as my avatar and his weapon as my username. I don't know who my favorite robot master is.

Good to see you're becoming more familiar with Construct! Learning by doing is always a good thing.

[quote="Magnet Missile":aaya2tjt]I need a way to have some type of time delay in the event actions, and it will help immensely, but I have no no idea how to do that. I've found out how to have time delay as part of the condition, but not the action. Is it possible?[/quote:aaya2tjt]

Have you tried the Function object yet? There's an action which lets you call a function after a delay. That might be a good way to go. To be a little more precise: you make an event with a "On Function" condition. Now this event will only run, when you call that function with an action in another event. And like mentioned you can do this with a delay ("Call function after delay").

So I hope this was helpful. Keep working with Construct, there's always something to learn and figuring out new ways to do certain things can be a lot of fun.